NASA Research Announcement for Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums Plus Opportunities for NASA Visitor Centers and Other Informal Education Institutions (CP4SMP+)Audience: Informal Education InstitutionsProposal Due Date: June 29, 2011

________________________________________________________________

Watch the 18th Annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race Live on UStream April 1-2, 2011

Watch the 18th annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race live on UStream — a one-stop shop for video and Twitter updates! The race will be held April 1-2, 2011, at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. On April 1, the race and the 40th anniversary celebration of the first use of the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the moon will be streamed on the web starting at 7 a.m. CDT at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-msfc .

The event honors the men and women who designed, tested, built and piloted the original lunar rovers — many of whom are expected to take part in the celebration. On April 2, the awards ceremony also will be available on the NASA UStream channel at 5 p.m. CDT.

More than 80 high school, college and university student teams from 22 states and Puerto Rico, and international challengers from six countries, including returning teams from Canada, India and Germany and — for the first time — racers from Ethiopia, Pakistan and Russia will battle through a challenging course of moon-like terrain at the Space & Rocket Center.

The NASA Great Moonbuggy Race began in 1994, inspired by the original lunar rovers developed for the Apollo moon missions in the 1970s by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Boeing and General Motors engineers. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first lunar rover rolling across the moon’s surface. The race is one of dozens of educational projects and initiatives led by the Marshall Center each year to attract and engage America’s next generation of scientists, engineers and explorers — those who will carry on the nation’s mission of exploration to uncharted destinations in the solar system.

NASA is inviting the public to vote for its favorite original song to wake up space shuttle Commander Mark Kelly and his five crewmates during their STS-134 mission to the International Space Station. Voting runs through launch day, which currently is targeted for April 19, 2011.

Electronic voting is open to the public on NASA’s Space Rock website, which includes the songs, inspiration and biographical information about the 10 finalists. https://songcontest.nasa.gov/.

Songwriters and performers from around the world submitted 1,350 songs, including 693 from 47 states, 105 from Canada, and 552 from 61 other countries. The song contest began Aug. 20, 2010 and ended Jan. 31. The finalists were notified on Feb. 18.

The two songs with the most votes will be the first original songs chosen by the public to be played as wakeup music for a shuttle crew. The STS-134 Original Song Contest ran concurrently with the Top 40 Song Contest for shuttle Discovery’s STS-133 mission. The Top 40 Song Contest ended earlier this month.

The song contests join the ongoing “Face in Space” project offering the opportunity to send a picture to space via an electronic transfer. During Discovery’s mission, more than 194,000 images flew in space. So far, almost 117,000 images have been submitted to fly aboard shuttle Endeavour’s STS-134 flight. To send your face to space aboard Endeavour, or Atlantis on the STS-135 mission targeted for June, visit http://faceinspace.nasa.gov.

The 14-day mission will be the 36th flight to the space station and the 25th, and final, flight for Endeavour. Pilot Greg H. Johnson and mission specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency will join Kelly. They will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics detector designed to search for various types of unusual matter by measuring cosmic rays. The crew also will deliver the Express Logistics Carrier-3, a platform that carries spare parts to sustain station operations once the shuttles are retired later this year.

NASA has invited college students to take part in the 2011 Space Tech Engineering Design Challenge. Students are invited to design a technology that will help further space exploration and development. Designs may relate to autonomous operations; entry, descent and landing; human factors; power/propulsion including for operation in space and on other planetary bodies; or robotics (not related to in-situ lunar samples). Students entering other NASA contests, such as Lunabotics or RASC-ALs, may not submit the same entry or technology that they used for the other contests. All entries must be original and must be the work of students, not faculty or corporate partners.

The contest is open to any full-time student enrolled in an accredited post-secondary institution in the United States. This category includes universities, colleges, trade schools, community colleges, professional schools, etc. Interdisciplinary teams are encouraged.

A notice of intent is requested as soon as possible. Final entries are due June 1, 2011.

NASA Research Announcement for Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums Plus Opportunities for NASA Visitor Centers and Other Informal Education Institutions (CP4SMP+)The NASA Office of Education invites proposals from museums, science centers, planetariums, NASA Visitor Centers, and other informal education institutions via this 2011 NASA Research Announcement: Competitive Program for Science Museums and Planetariums Plus Opportunities for NASA Visitor Centers and Other Informal Education Institutions (CP4SMP+), Announcement Number NNH11ZHA004N. Proposals must be submitted electronically via the NASA proposal data system NSPIRES or Grants.gov.

Proposers may request a grant or cooperative agreement to support NASA-themed science, technology, engineering or mathematics informal education, including exhibits, within these congressionally directed topics: space exploration, aeronautics, space science, Earth science or microgravity. CP4SMP+ is a competitive, high-quality, national program to recruit NASA’s flagship investment in the Office of Education’s Outcome Goal 3: Build strategic partnerships and linkages between STEM formal and informal education providers that promote STEM literacy and awareness of NASA’s mission. Eligible informal education institutions do not need to have the words “museum,” “science” or “planetarium” in their official name. Proposals from entities outside the U.S. will not be considered. Review the NRA for detailed eligibility requirements and proposal limitations and check the NSPIRES website once a week to see if amendments or frequently asked questions have been added. Amendments and FAQs will be announced via the NASA Education Express listserv.